For about then same $, EP-5 or E-PL7 ?

Joel in Goe wrote:

After a couple of years my E-PL7 started dying, and I have now got myself a nice second-hand E-P5 for the reasons mentioned above. It is a lovely camera, responsive as well as (in black and silver) aesthetically far more attractive than the E-PL7, not that we let that kind of thing influence us at all It is still small enough for me, not much larger than the 7, and lies much more comfortably in the hand.

I have one of each, both look good to me......

What did surprise me though, which I have not seen mentioned, was the difference in jpegs out of the camera. For purely raw shooters this will be irrelevant, but for me it was immediately obvious that the beatiful Olympus colours were back, just like from my first E-PL1 which made me fall in love with Oly to start with. I hasn't really noticed that the colours had changed in subsequent E-PLs, but there is a huge difference. The E-P5 gives those lovely saturated warm colours I love in portraits, in a way that I never got out of the E-PL7. And no, it is not because of the settings, I am quite familiar with the "natual", "warm colors", etc etc settings buried deep in the undergrowth of the Oly menus.

I'll look for an illustrative photo when I get home and add it. For now, just something to consider when choosing.

Interesting to hear. I went Oly E-300 > E-PL1 > E-PL5 > E-P5 and was happy all along with the output. Maybe the E-PL7 deviated, maybe a difference between Truepic VI and VII image processing chips.

The only "problem" I found was that if the pop-up flash of the E-P5 was used (extremely rare for me) then I had huge lens shadows from my 12-40/2.8 lens. That means I always carry the tiny FL-300R just in case I need flash, plus of course the pop-up can control the FL-300R as an RC remote but only in TTL or Manual flash mode, no high speed sync or self auto modes with the FL-300R.

Again, a mess of random M4/3 info of mine at http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~parsog/olyepl1/01-epl1-menu.html

Regards..... Guy